I was thinking of buying a 2016 Limited, Sport or Platinum Explorer but Sync 3 is not available on any trim level of the 2016 Explorer. What was Ford thinking. The 2016 is a mid cycle refresh. Sync 3 is available on the 2016 Escape and Edge.

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Yeah who knows. I just picked up a 16 Taurus and it has it. (thank God)

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Sync 3, Ford's vastly upgraded infotainment system, shows up in the Escape's dashboard on a responsive touchscreen.
While Sync 3 was available in the 2016 Escape, now it adds support for Apple CarPlay and Android Auto along with Sync Connect, a built-in data connection for the car that works with the upcoming FordPass app.

Sync 3 encompasses navigation, audio, hands-free phone integration and an app platform, working simply and seamlessly. I particularly like the responsive touchscreen and single-box destination search for navigation, which lets you enter street addresses or place names in the same entry field. App connectivity, which includes Spotify, Pandora, Glympse and iHeartRadio, shows play screens formatted similarly to onboard music play screens, making it easy to go from source to source.

When I first used Sync 3 last year, I wished that Ford would implement online destination search. The Sync Connect system, which adds a 4G/LTE data connection to the car, doesn't fulfill my wishes.
This data connection doesn't really interact with Sync 3 so much, instead serving telematics services.
With it and the FordPass app, you can remotely lock and unlock the doors and start the engine, see the car's current location and check the fuel level.

FordPass also includes a call center, with operators who can look up destinations for you and send them to the car's navigation system, a capability which lets Ford catch up with GM's Onstar telematics service.

Plugging in my iPhone let me run Apple CarPlay in the dashboard. Here, the screen showed the familiar and colorful icon-based homescreen with the addition of a Ford Sync button.

Touching the Sync button brought up what looked like the Sync 3 homescreen, with tiles for navigation, phone and stereo. However, CarPlay still controlled individual functions. For example, touching the navigation tile launched Apple Maps rather than Ford's native navigation system. I would prefer if the system let me go back to the full version of
Sync 3.